The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his European partners wanted to send a message this Monday to the Russian Vladimir Putin: Europe, two years after the large-scale attack against Ukraine, is neither tired of war nor will it allow Russia to win it. Because after Ukraine, according to Macron, members of the EU or NATO may be the next Russian targets. The Western commitment to kyiv could go as far as breaking a taboo: sending troops.
“Today there is no consensus to officially, assumedly and decisively send ground forces,” Macron said at a press conference at the end of a summit with 27 leaders and ministers of the European Union and NATO. But he added: “Nothing should be excluded. “We will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war.”
The French president clarified that, at the leaders’ conference and the subsequent dinner, sending troops had been cited among the options to reinforce assistance to Ukraine. And he defended France’s “strategic ambiguity” on this issue, without specifying whether this country was in favor or not.
Before the conference, Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico had warned that sending troops was on the agenda. Fico, present in Paris, commented that this gave him “chills.”
What was significant was that Macron, when summarizing the debates, considered it a plausible hypothesis, or worthy of mention. He recalled that in the winter of 2022 there was talk of sending “sleeping bags and helmets” and “today they say that missiles and tanks must be sent.” And he stated: “Everything is possible if it is useful to achieve our goal.”
Other initiatives of the conference include the common issuance of debt to finance military aid to Ukraine, proposed by Estonia, and the purchase of ammunition from third countries to send to the Ukrainian armed forces. It was also decided to create a coalition to boost the supply of medium and long-range missiles.
“Russia, from the outset, cannot and must not win this war in Ukraine, for Ukraine itself,” Macron said when opening the summit. “Second, we are guaranteeing our collective security, today and tomorrow.”
The French president recalled the recent Russian cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns, and added, regarding a future military threat beyond Ukraine: “Consensus, collective analysis [entre los participantes] “It is that in a few years we have to prepare for Russia to attack these countries.”
Europe, according to this analysis, must help Ukraine, because a Russian victory would embolden Putin to attack more countries. The argument is that by defending Ukraine with military and economic assistance, you are defending Europe.
In a recorded message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated: “Together we must ensure that Putin cannot destroy our achievements, nor expand his aggression to other nations.”
Commitment to Ukraine
At the meeting, the leaders tried to refute Western pessimism about the course of the fighting. And they exhibited their commitment to the attacked country. But they face growing doubts about their ability to supply on time and in the necessary quantities the weapons and ammunition that Ukraine requires to stop Russian advances.
The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, attended the conference, but not the Italian Giorgia Meloni. The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom—partners in NATO, but not the EU—were represented by an undersecretary of state in the American case and by ministers in the other two.
The call, improvised by Macron in a hurry, responded to the urgency of the moment. An immediate reason: the blockage of aid in the US Congress, which leaves the Europeans alone in aiding Ukraine. And another in the medium term: the hypothesis that, with a victory for Donald Trump in the presidential elections in November, the leading world power will disengage from Europe.
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“If we do not provide ourselves with the means to simultaneously do more and better [por Ucrania]”We run the risk of giving up too much space to the Russians,” said an advisor to the French president on the eve of the summit, who requested anonymity. The objective of the summit is twofold, according to the advisor: “To signal very clearly to President Putin that, one, he will not win, and two, that we are not tired, that we are totally determined.”
The internal European context also counts, with the parliamentary elections in June in sight and the mobilizations of peasants. One of the reasons for these protests – and more significant the closer they are to the EU border with Ukraine – is the rejection of competition from Ukrainian agricultural products and the fear of this country’s entry into the EU.
France, Germany and the United Kingdom, in application of a decision at the G-7 last July, have signed security agreements with Ukraine this winter. Although the agreements commit them to aid for the attacked country over the next 10 years, they do not replace the obligation of mutual defense that joining NATO would represent.
One of the points that the leaders addressed in Paris is how to accelerate the production of ammunition for Ukraine or its purchase from third countries. “We must be able to deliver more shells,” says the aforementioned Elysée counselor. “We will buy howitzers where they are available.”
In the background of the meeting, a discussion was planned about who provides more or less aid to Ukraine. France, which appears in a worse position compared to Germany in the classification established by the Kiel Economic Institute, defends that not only the economic value of weapons must be quantified, but also their effectiveness in the theater of war.
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